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PlanetMaker Development Update

I’ve been plugging away at PlanetMaker whenever I have a moment, but it has been slow going for the next release. Up to now, the main focus has been on the new navigation controls which mimic those of Google Earth; the challenge being the math involved in getting the atmospheric effects to play ball.

The scene scripting is largely in place, however I would love some suggestions as to what kind of functionality folks would like to see in the API. It’s pretty limited at the moment as far as built-ins, but will include examples such as adding rings around moons, orbit & rotation animations, adding an asteroid belt, and a few others. Otherwise it’s a fully functional JavaScript interface, so all of the PlanetMaker internals, three.js and jQuery libraries are at your disposal.

I also made a few interface improvements which should make fine-tuning of things a little easier.

I haven’t committed to a specific target date for releasing this version, but I am pushing the changes to the development preview server at http://dev.wthr.us at a pretty regular basis. There are a few bugs and regressions I need to iron out yet, but it shouldn’t be too long…